Sian Berry bids to run against Keir Starmer in Holborn and St Pancras

THERE’S no election fatigue for Highgate councillor, London Assembly member and former mayoral candidate Sian Berry, who is set to stand against Labour’s Keir Starmer in Holborn and St Pancras at the general election. Start the sweepstake then on how long Labour ward rival Oliver Lewis takes to make a comment on how many roles she will potentially have to juggle in the next month and a half.

Sian tweets that she’s just at the filing papers stage, but if someone of her standing within the Green Party applies then it’s hard to think the gig would go to anyone else. She will follow in former national leader Natalie Bennett’s footsteps if she is named the official candidate on Saturday.

She is a great proponent of the ‘progressive alliance’, which comes with the idea that some electoral pacts may be needed among parties opposing hard Brexit Conservatives. So, it will be interesting to see what the party decides to do in Hampstead and Kilburn, where the Greens are a long way behind in the vote but a Labour MP who voted against Brexit is in peril.

Both selections are on Saturday and in the case of the north of the borough, members from Camden and neighbouring Brent, will have the final say on what to do. It will be done democratically and openly and not in a back room, a local Green campaigner explains, proudly.